I gave in to the monster before I hit 24 hours. I'm gonna try again once this shit I got earlier is gone... sorry for not posting much info, I've typed out my situation on some other threads and my phone is all I have to use and it is a PAIN IN THE ASS to type with. Heroin is my demon. I'm going to kick this. I have very little support from my boyfriend and my family cast me out. My bf says he'll quit when I do,but if I use, he will too.. complicates things for sure,especially when he's such a baby when he doesn't feel good... I'm so full of holes and bruising and lumps from shooting up.. I used my breast the other day..I'm just ashamed of myself. Can't believe I relapsed so fixing quickly..
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AADD Moderators: andyturbo
methadone, buprenorphine and other opioid pharmacotherapies
- Thread starter junkie skumbag
- Start date
Fair enough - that was more or less my approach too.
The unsupportive/enabling bf sounds like a bit of a problem though.
I don't know what else to suggest, cos this be the Australian subforum...have you looked around in North & South American Social & Drug Discussion?
The unsupportive/enabling bf sounds like a bit of a problem though.
I don't know what else to suggest, cos this be the Australian subforum...have you looked around in North & South American Social & Drug Discussion?
Acanthus
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2014
- Messages
- 88
I didn't think that really mattered? I used to go to a clinic that tested maybe once every couple of months, and I pissed dirty probably 80% of the time, but the doctor just told me I shouldn't do that. There was never any repercussions at all.
The current place I'm at never piss tests at all (like ever) which is sweet, as the whole process is a bit demeaning.
Hey all, I've been looking around the interwebz for info on bupe treatment programs in NSW (Sydney), but I'm still not clear on the issue of how it is dispensed? If you go on a program, do you have to go to a clinic each day and get your dose? Or can you take a prescription home with you and manage it yourself?
Thanks
Thanks
catching fish
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2011
- Messages
- 280
How many do you get opi8 if I may ask? I'm talking about 'done obviously.
Acanthus
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2014
- Messages
- 88
If you are near/in the S/SE/E suburbs of Sydney, look up "Kobi Clinic" (Waverley) on Google, give them a call during business hours and ask what time you can come in to see the doctor about going on the buprenorphine program. There are no appointments but they will just say "come any time after...", get there early because otherwise you will have to wait in the queue which can really suck. If you have a valid Medicare card it costs nothing to see the doctor, but you have to pay (I think it's this much, at least it was last year) $50/week for the medication (Suboxone).
When you first start you have to come every day to the clinic and get the dose, opening hours are fairly generous though, so you can go before/after work/study if need be. You line up and they hand it through a window. After a few weeks the doctor will probably allow you to do "double-dosing", so for example if you're on a daily dose of 8mg/day, they will give you a single 16mg dose, and that will hold you for an extra day so you don't have to come in as often. Some people find this works well, others prefer more regular single doses.
In regards to take-aways, I'm afraid from my experience these are hard to get. What counts is the piss tests, which they do about every 3 weeks or so randomly. I failed probably 80% of mine due to taking codeine/dihydrocodeine along with my Suboxone, so I was never given any take-aways. In fact the whole entire time I was there I only saw a couple of people get them, and they were people who had been on the program a VERY (depressingly) long time (many years).
In Sydney for some reason they are super-paranoid about handing out medication to take home. I sort of see where they're coming from, as a lot of the patients would probably end up selling it and/or slamming it.
In conclusion: (from my experience) the opiate maintenance system in Sydney is very restrictive and burdensome on the patient. In Melbourne I never get piss tested, get 7 take-aways a week, go to a nice pharmacy instead of a clinic, never have to wait to get dosed or see a doctor, and it's nearly half the price compared to Sydney.
Tip: If you do decide to go with the Kobi clinic, try and get Dr. Curry. He's super good, and even tries to help you with other problems in your life, like depression and other issues. He's really caring and helped me a lot.
chugs
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2004
- Messages
- 2,025
yeah i have to agree that finding suboxone prescriber in Sydney is like pulling teeth, probably harder. I spent a couple of days calling around only to discover at the end of it, on the NSW health gov line that basically any GP can prescibe subutex or suboxone (up to five patients) before they have to pass some tests.
I think that the vast majority of clinics and prescribers are preying on the socio-disadvantage stratum of our society. The middle and up-class can basically afford the prescription opiates of their choice. Doctors prescribe to their peers with little challenge or difficulty. Those alarming figures you hear on the current affairs about the growth in prescription opiates, its not going to young people, its going to the 50+ crowd. Shit i had my dad offer my partner endone for a migraine!
the poor people on the other hand who don't have a full time work and are drug dependent are basically easy game for the clinics who charge eccessively, maintain artifical controls, use piss tests contray to NSW Opiate Replacement therapy manual and basically encouraged the creation of guidelines that control patients and prevent them from leading normal lives.
For any normal person going to a clinic/chemist 7 fucking days a week for 3 months before your even considered for takeways is utter bullshit. Not only do i work (7-10 hours a day) but i also have you know a fucking life, and the idea of being judged and discriminated by, whilst having my pocket picked, the chemist/clinic is not on my list of things to do. and even then its not for at least 6 months before you get any sort of semi-regular take-away. and instead use piss tests to basically clamp down on any "take-away privileges" which is indirect contradict to the purpose of surveillance which is simply to provide a guide to patient health and assist in their management plan. (they're managing you like your a fucking five year old).
I said this to the people opiate replacement hotline and they all agreed. I told them it was easier just to stay on the smack because at least my dealer was available when i was free. Plus dosing. I know the hard-core are on 16-32mg a day but shit if i took 16mg, even after a half-gram a day habit, I'd be fucking maggoted. I'd be so rooted, dribbling, and barely awake that i'd lose my job on the first day of any program. I like to dose when i want, when i need to do. Not by someones clock who has no idea how my biology works, or how i react different to drugs in various environments
Its clear the people who wrote the rules and guidelines for the opiate replacement therapy programs don't really give a flying fuck about their clients. All they care is about the number of articles they write, chapters they've contributed and books they've published. Its not about people's lives, its about "outcomes".
What outcomes does the program create but just an army of addicts that feed out of their hands, who jump their hoops and march to their tune. I've seen NSW health. Bunch of fucking nazis who are happy to let people suffer and die, especially Northern. Ryde hospital, I'll warn you know are criminal in their treat of people. Royal North Shore would rather let addicts die on the floor then treat them like humans.
I'm so angry at the system that we all contribute to. Its run by really sick and evil people.
I think that the vast majority of clinics and prescribers are preying on the socio-disadvantage stratum of our society. The middle and up-class can basically afford the prescription opiates of their choice. Doctors prescribe to their peers with little challenge or difficulty. Those alarming figures you hear on the current affairs about the growth in prescription opiates, its not going to young people, its going to the 50+ crowd. Shit i had my dad offer my partner endone for a migraine!
the poor people on the other hand who don't have a full time work and are drug dependent are basically easy game for the clinics who charge eccessively, maintain artifical controls, use piss tests contray to NSW Opiate Replacement therapy manual and basically encouraged the creation of guidelines that control patients and prevent them from leading normal lives.
For any normal person going to a clinic/chemist 7 fucking days a week for 3 months before your even considered for takeways is utter bullshit. Not only do i work (7-10 hours a day) but i also have you know a fucking life, and the idea of being judged and discriminated by, whilst having my pocket picked, the chemist/clinic is not on my list of things to do. and even then its not for at least 6 months before you get any sort of semi-regular take-away. and instead use piss tests to basically clamp down on any "take-away privileges" which is indirect contradict to the purpose of surveillance which is simply to provide a guide to patient health and assist in their management plan. (they're managing you like your a fucking five year old).
I said this to the people opiate replacement hotline and they all agreed. I told them it was easier just to stay on the smack because at least my dealer was available when i was free. Plus dosing. I know the hard-core are on 16-32mg a day but shit if i took 16mg, even after a half-gram a day habit, I'd be fucking maggoted. I'd be so rooted, dribbling, and barely awake that i'd lose my job on the first day of any program. I like to dose when i want, when i need to do. Not by someones clock who has no idea how my biology works, or how i react different to drugs in various environments
Its clear the people who wrote the rules and guidelines for the opiate replacement therapy programs don't really give a flying fuck about their clients. All they care is about the number of articles they write, chapters they've contributed and books they've published. Its not about people's lives, its about "outcomes".
What outcomes does the program create but just an army of addicts that feed out of their hands, who jump their hoops and march to their tune. I've seen NSW health. Bunch of fucking nazis who are happy to let people suffer and die, especially Northern. Ryde hospital, I'll warn you know are criminal in their treat of people. Royal North Shore would rather let addicts die on the floor then treat them like humans.
I'm so angry at the system that we all contribute to. Its run by really sick and evil people.
Ashley
Bluelight Crew
Hear, hear.
A.
A.
Crankinit
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2007
- Messages
- 6,175
Makes me wish this site had a ''like'' system.
I've been exceptionally lucky (private doctor prescribes my subs so I've never had to go near a clinic and their draconian nonsense, and the workers at the pharmacy a 10m walk away are all really friendly*), and I still get mad at how messed up the whole system is.
The pricing alone is absurd, over $1800 a year (and I've heard there are places which charge even more than $5 a day). What exactly is it people are paying for? It can't be the drugs themselves, when a box of morphine or oxycodone etc. will set someone back less than $20 for a month's supply, it can't be the service, if they charge you for days when you don't come in because you have a take away dose (and yet, ironically, they don't charge for the days when you just don't turn up).
IMO this country needs a good hard look at Europe, where different countries have been experimenting with XR dihydrocodeine and XR morphine, or IV heroin clinics, as maintenance tools, for decades, to massive success.
*Although sometimes I think they must have a sick sense of humor - the counter where I grab my subs has a poster of all the existing opioid pharmaceuticals on the right, a shelf full of benzos straight ahead and a shelf full of codeine products to the left.
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Christ!
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2006
- Messages
- 1,013
Some good points I think. Lucky that your chemist is so close and they're nice.
Don't agree so much on the pricing. $30-40 a week is reasonable when you consider how much the person was probably spending on their habit beforehand, and it provides an incentive for people to come off it in the long run. In the US Suboxone is pretty damn expensive, along with the cost of seeing a doctor it can be prohibitively expensive, we're very fortunate to have PBS/Medicare. Pricing is the way it is because it has to be worth it for the pharmacy, running an opiate maintenance program isn't simple/easy. People who are on the poverty line should have it covered, the rest of us should have to pay.
Coming from someone who's probably spent $15k on this stuff over the years
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
I just feel like it's my responsibility or something.Absolutely. Something that we are going to all need to fight for in the coming years too.
The American health system is fucked up and scary.
jaysofab
Bluelighter
surprisingly im not going to list prices but the doctor that I visit my copay covers prescription and that is nice because that shit is expensive my friend pays outrageous prices I feel so bad just to stop addiction
agreed it is my dad tries telling me this all the time lol
and like you said haha I like that how low can you go agreed less is obviously more cause norbupe
sinclair1984
Bluelighter
If your in the us the any mistake made by your pharmacy is Not on you. I know from experience having gotten forty-five extra oxy's a few years ago. The next time I went in they just advised me to destroy the "excess product".
sinclair1984
Bluelighter
I sometimes feel like I just switched to a legal dope dealer with inferior product. where I live I could get high all month on dope for the price of my suboxone alone. I think it's big pharma trying to take over the dope trade completely.
the_ketaman
Bluelighter
Wow! The other day I had 1/2g of heroin & 280mg of methadone and suffered an overdose but not your average OD. I had really bad heart palpitations, poor circulation, I can't even remember the symptoms but it was really scary, I was certain I was going to have a heart attack. The thing is though, I wasn't high or even sedated. It was much more like a stimulant OD ???
Luckily I had some Narcan vials which did the trick because I don't think it would have ended well otherwise. And I'm done trying to break through my dose, I wasn't high at all or even sedated from the drugs, my body just couldn't handle everything I pumped into myself even though I didn't feel anything. It was an incredibly terrifying experience and I have no desire to try getting a high through my methadone dose anymore,
I had no idea how easy it is to OD on top of methadone. I thought that because I wasn't getting high that it wasn't doing any harm but I was very wrong. I've done it a million times and always been fine but this time my body said no more!
Luckily I had some Narcan vials which did the trick because I don't think it would have ended well otherwise. And I'm done trying to break through my dose, I wasn't high at all or even sedated from the drugs, my body just couldn't handle everything I pumped into myself even though I didn't feel anything. It was an incredibly terrifying experience and I have no desire to try getting a high through my methadone dose anymore,
I had no idea how easy it is to OD on top of methadone. I thought that because I wasn't getting high that it wasn't doing any harm but I was very wrong. I've done it a million times and always been fine but this time my body said no more!